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Bush looks to his father to mend relations with Putin

By Rupert Cornwell in Washington

Published: 30 June 2007

‘Tomorrow's summit between George Bush and Vladimir Putin raises the intriguing question of whether the shadow of the father can help the son bring an end to the frostiest period in ties between the United States and Russia since the Cold War?

For the first time in his six-and-a-half years in power, Mr Bush is inviting a foreign dignitary not to the White House, or the Camp David retreat, or his ranch in Texas. This meeting takes place at the home of Mr Bush's father in Kennebunkport, Maine. The former president's deft handling of US-Soviet relations was a hallmark of his term in office.

The White House confirmed yesterday that the 41st president will be at the house while his son entertains Mr Putin. Although he will not take part in the official talks, the elder Bush is bound to be involved informally as the two leaders address the host of grievances that divide them.

These range from the planned US missile defence system in eastern Europe to the independence of Kosovo - both fiercely opposed by the Kremlin.

With issues including the missile defence system the US wants to install in Eastern Europe and Kosovo's independence having taken the superpowers' relationship to the lowest point since the end of the Cold War, the leaders will seek to bridge the fissures which have grown over the past year.

The relationship appeared to plunge in recent months, with Mr Putin suggesting in Red Square on May 9 that US policies were beginning to resemble those of Hitler's Third Reich.

One month later, while in Prague, Mr Bush strongly assailed the state of democracy in Russia under Mr Putin.

"Reforms that once promised to empower citizens have been derailed, with troubling implications for democratic development," he said.

The two leaders appeared to strike up a close bond after Mr Bush became president in 2001, but their differences now dominate the relationship.

Mr Putin opposes the US fight in Iraq; The US Government wants to see Kosovo move toward independence under the UN's guide, while Russia is deeply opposed; and Russia sees the US's proposed deployment of a missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic as a threat.

The US insists that the system is targetted at possible missile attacks from a rogue state such as Iran, but the Kremlin does not believe the threat exists.

"The stationing of new military devices in Europe will lead to a debalancing of a very fragile balance of security," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

"If the US is deploying a radar in the Czech Republic this radar will be aimed against us, because there won't be any other targets for that radar."

Both sides say not to expect any formal agreements out of the summit at the Bush family holiday home on a rocky outcrop overlooking the Atlantic, where former president George Bush is also present.

The disagreements are too strong for that, experts say.

Mr Bush wants to meet in an informal setting "so that the two leaders could interact more informally, and that's what the meeting at Kennebunkport will facilitate," a senior Bush administration official said.

At the nadir of his presidency, George W. Bush is looking for answers. One at a time or in small groups, he summons leading authors, historians, philosophers and theologians to the White House to join him in the search.

Over sodas and sparkling water, he asks his questions: What is the nature of good and evil in the post-Sept. 11 world? What lessons does history have for a president facing the turmoil I'm facing? How will history judge what we've done? Why does the rest of the world seem to hate America? Or is it just me they hate?

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Gus: if the little Bushit had read all of yourdemocracy website,he would know what's wrong... Good 'n' evil does not exist, sir... it's only a human perrception of who wants to grabs our balls versus whose balls we want to steal.... The Roman Empire ruled in various ways on this level and the philosophy of ruling is still the same although others want to rule as well... Dear president, minimising killing, lies, and stealing would be a good start...

KENNEBUNKPORT, Me., July 2 — Announcing he was “here to play,” President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia said today that he was ready to expand his proposal for a shared missile defense system with the United States during meetings with President Bush here, a step that he said would take American-Russian relations to a new level of cooperation.

But the system would be based almost entirely in the former Soviet Union, and Mr. Putin’s proposal represented a continued rejection of an American plan to base it in the Czech Republic and Poland.

Next week's visit to Moscow by Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is an opportunity for Russia to take a fresh look at the country and smooth over problems in its defense relations with New Delhi, analysts said Thursday.

Singh is expected in Moscow for an annual summit with President Vladimir Putin on Monday. The talks are likely to focus on boosting political and economic relations and building on agreements reached during Putin's visit to New Delhi in January. Just a handful of deals will likely be signed this time around, a Russian Foreign Ministry official said.

Russia still lags behind in its ties with India after focusing almost entirely on the West in 1990s, while meager trade turnover with India is a particularly sore point.

"Many in Russia still view India as the land of elephants and snake charmers," said Tatyana Shaumyan, head of the Center of Indian Research at the Russian Academy of Sciences' Institute of Oriental Studies. "This is a mistake -- we need to take a fresh look."

Earlier this year, India and Russia agreed to boost bilateral trade to $10 billion by 2010, from $4 billion last year. The target still falls far short of the potential trade figure and Russia should shed its longstanding stereotypes to move beyond trade in tea and textiles, Shaumyan said.

Russia could learn much from India's experience in many areas, such as in the development of small and medium-sized businesses, hi-tech industries and in political federalism, she said.

Both nations have common positions on Iraq and nuclear nonproliferation, and Russia favors India's bid for a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council. While India appears to be keen to capitalize on its relations with Russia, its ties with Washington have also intensified recently. The United States is now India's top trading partner.

The Kremlin wants to keep India on its side as it tries to cement the proto-alliance of Russia, China and India as a counterweight to the United States and the West. Russia and India have held annual bilateral summits since 2000.

Analysts said that instead of fuming over New Delhi's intensifying relations with Washington, Russia should do its best to remove unnecessary irritants in its own ties with India. Delays in refitting the Admiral Gorshkov, an aircraft carrier India bought from Russia in 2004, as well as spiraling costs in defense deals, are raising eyebrows in New Delhi.

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Gus: let's not forget the government in India relies on the coalition between the "ruling" party and the Indian communist party... The Indian communists have presently sunk the nuke deal the US was trying to make with India, as it would have meant a less independent India in their eyes... It will be interesting to know how this develop as India is buying Russian jet fighters, Sukhov 30.

Now, that the biggest listed capitalist company in the world is Chinese (double the value of Exxon), we are getting mixed messages about the melting pots that are the West and the East... The dynamics are fascinating. Let's not forget that an alliance between China, Russia and India would represent nearly half of the human population of the planet...

Kosovo, a predominantly Muslim land severed from Serbia by US and NATO military intervention, was turned into a hotbed of radical Islamism and a fertile recruiting ground for terrorists thanks to money pumped into it by Gulf kingdoms, the New York Times reported.

Among all European nations Kosovo holds the grim record of having the biggest per capita rate of people joining the terrorist group Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) in Syria. In a land of 1.8 million, 314 Kosovars were identified by the police over the past two years as IS recruits.

Local authorities and moderate imams blame the problem on a network of extremist clerics backed by money coming from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait and other Arab nations. Funded through a shady network of private donations, mercurial charities and Islamic scholarship programs, they spread the brand of Islam called Wahhabism, a hardline sect to which Saudi Arabia adheres.

“The first thing the Wahhabis do is to take members of our congregation, who understand Islam in the traditional Kosovo way that we had for generations, and try to draw them away from this understanding,” Idriz Bilalli, an imam of the central mosque in Podujevo, told NYT. “Once they get them away from the traditional congregation, then they start bombarding them with radical thoughts and ideas.”

“The main goal of their activity is to create conflict between people,” he added. “This first creates division, and then hatred, and then it can come to what happened in Arab countries, where war starts because of these conflicting ideas.”

Wahhabism tenets include the supremacy of Sharia law, the idea of violent jihad and takfirism, which encourages killing of Muslims considered heretics for not following its interpretation of Islam. Kosovo, which declared independence from Serbia in 2008, states that it is a secular country in its constitution. Kosovars are predominantly Albanian Muslims who adhere to the moderate Hanafi school of Islam inherited from the five centuries of Ottoman rule.

Saudi charities and preachers flooded Kosovo after the Balkan wars, offering money to build mosques and help the poor in exchange for following stricter everyday norms such as wearing head scarves.

“They came in the name of aid,” Enver Rexhepi, a moderate imam in Gjilan, said of the Arab charities in an interview with the newspaper. “But they came with a background of different intentions, and that’s where the Islamic religion started splitting here.”

“I spent 10 years in Arab countries and specialized in sectarianism within Islam,” he added. “It’s very important to stop Arab sectarianism from being introduced to Kosovo.”

For some moderates like Rexhepi opposing the spread of Wahhabism meant trouble. In 2004, he clashed with young radical preacher Zekirja Qazimi over an Albanian flag displayed in Rexhepi’s mosque. The flag features a double-headed eagle. Wahhabism considers depictions of living things idolatrous, so Qazimi tore the flag down. Rexhepi put it back.

Within days Rexhepi was abducted and savagely beaten by masked men in the woods above Gjilan, he told NYT. He believes Qazimi was behind the attack, but the police investigation went nowhere.

Reading from top brings fond memories of Russia hiding in the Bushes without fear of being overtly malingered. It was only during the Obama years, that the Liberal MMMM (Mediocre Mass Media de mierda) fed by the NSA, the CIA and other bullshit promoting organisations, rekindled the full-on "hating the Ruskies" sentiment akin to "hating the bosche" (or the Krauts) during WWII.

This might have been brought on by the Russian themselves of course, when, instead of folding badly like a crummy deckchair on a rocking rust bucket in a US hurricane, after Ronald poked the eye of Gorbachev in a friendly agreement, they started to assert themselves on the international stage under a little guy called Putin. The cads.

This is why for no other reason than they exist, the Russians are portrayed worse than the devil himself in the media that seems to have lost its appetite of mentioning "terrorists" every day. Now, it's all Russia this, Putin that, etc... on every chime of the news clock. Go away... Take a bubble bath.

(CNN) Former first lady Barbara Bush is in failing health, a source close to the Bush family tells CNN.

The source said she is being cared for at her home in Houston and has decided she does not want to go back into the hospital. She has been on oxygen for some time.Her husband, former President George H. W. Bush is with her, as are daughter Doro and sons Marvin and Neil. Her other sons, former President George W. Bush and former Gov. Jeb Bush, have been in and out visiting her the past week.Read more:https://edition.cnn.com/2018/04/15/politics/barbara-bush-health/index.html

Poor woman. Having married an ex-CIA con-man (George Bush senior — a mass murderer to boot), having had a mass murderer son (President G W Bush) and a failed presidential other "clever" son, who made the idiot other son (mass murderer President G W Bush) look like a rough diamond — she deserves dignity.Read from top.

George H.W. Bush served as the 41st President of the United States from 1989 to 1993.

Former US President George H.W. Bush has died at the age of 94, a statement issued by a family spokesman read.

"George Herbert Walker Bush, World War II naval aviator, Texas oil pioneer, and 41st President of the United States of America, died on November 30, 2018. He was 94… Funeral arrangements will be announced as soon as is practical," the statement, published on Twitter by family spokesman Jim McGrath, read.

He is survived by sons George W. Bush (the 43rd president of the United States) and Jeb Bush (ex-governor of Florida).

In late April, he was taken to hospital with an infection that spread to his blood, soon after the funeral of his late wife Barbara Bush. He was suffering from Parkinson’s disease and couldn't walk on his own, instead relying on a wheelchair and a stroller.

Born on June 12, 1924, 'Bush senior' was the oldest living US ex-president. He served as the 41st president of the United States between 1989 and 1993. Bush had also been a decorated World War II veteran, Texas congressman, CIA director and Ronald Reagan's vice president.

George HW Bush may have been the most underrated US president since Harry Truman, and like the haberdasher from Missouri, probably deserves to be elevated in the judgement of history beyond contemporary assessment of his single term.

Like Mr Truman, Mr Bush presided over the end of one kind of war and the emergence of a peace that brought with it a new, uncertain world order — and ultimately, more conflict.

By the time he left office following his defeat in the 1992 election to Bill Clinton, Mr Bush seemed old, tired and out of touch.

It is hard to imagine now, but his failure to recognise a grocery scanner after eight years in the bubble of the vice-presidency was a big deal back then.

So was his watch-checking during debates. Nice guy George did not want to exceed his time limit — the unfortunate effect was that he had somewhere he would rather be. Voters were happy to let him go there.

Gus: This glossy eulogy of the Old Bush, by our ABC, "fact-checking" right-wing journalist, John Barron in on par with a slippery oil-diluted praise of Donald trump by Steve Bannon...

Like all US President in charge, Old George was deceitful... His honest good guy image did not fool us.

John, you need to peel the layers of charm and you end up with his Trumpish strategy. Trump is in the same mould, but lacks the refinements of lying with subtlety and adds idiotic bombasts to the mix... So far Trump has made less damage to history than Old Bush, though he is on track to catch up.

As the newly dead George Herbert Walker Bush luxuriates in the accolades of America's bipartisan political/media establishment, I thought it meet to look again at the article below, which I wrote in 2006, detailing one of the great glories of his great and glorious reign: the thwarting of the investigation into BCCI, "one of the largest criminal organizations in history." Strangely enough, I saw a now-familiar name popping up as one of the key figures in this nefarious cover-up operation by the Bush crime family (who make the Trump Gang look like the two-bit pikers they are): one Robert Mueller, champion of the Resistance and incorruptible shield of the Republic.

Anyway, here’s the lowdown, from 12 years ago. You probably won't see these facts mentioned in any of the upchuckings of hagiography being churned out by our tough, savvy seekers of truth in the Fourth Estate.

This week, the Washington Post offered a grim overview of Iraq's epidemic of mental disorders, produced by years of war, upheaval and neglect ("Iraq's Crisis of Scarred Psyches," March 6). Of course, much of this psychological damage is the fault of Saddam Hussein and the brutal regime he installed: militarism, tyranny and the gross deceit required to maintain them wreak serious havoc on the human mind, as Americans are coming to know too well. But there is a deeper history behind the unfolding nightmare in Iraq – a method to the induced madness – that is inextricably linked to the political and personal fortunes of two sinister twerps named George Bush.

As historian Roger Morris has usefully reminded us, Saddam's regime was midwifed by not one but two coups supported by the CIA: the first brought the Baathist Party to power, the second, an internal coup, engineered the ascension of Saddam's family-centered faction to the top. It is unlikely that Saddam would have ever been a position to impose his perverted militarist vision on Iraqi society without the assistance of the elitist operatives whose headquarters now proudly bears the name of George Herbert Walker Bush.

Let us also remember that Saddam was sustained in his harsh rule with the eager support of Ronald Reagan and theaforementioned George H.W. Bush. Indeed, the latter's passionate embrace of Saddam seemed to know no bounds, so avidly did Bush ply the dictator with money, agricultural credits (which allowed Saddam to use his scarce hard currency for weapons) and advanced technology – includuing "dual-use" gear for weapons of mass destruction – despite the strong warnings of his own Cabinet against such reckless policies, and a 1989 report by the CIA that Iraq had greatly accelerated its nuclear program, and was now the world's largest maker of chemical weapons.

Bush also used the global criminal network of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) to secretly funnel cash and weaponry to Saddam – then intervened to quash federal investigations of the scam. What was BCCI? Only "one of the largest criminal enterprises in history," according to the United States Senate. What did BCCI do? "It engaged in pandemic bribery of officials in Europe, Africa, Asia and the Americas," says journalist Christopher Bryon, who first exposed the operation. "It laundered money on a global scale, intimidated witnesses and law officers, engaged in extortion and blackmail. It supplied the financing for illegal arms trafficking and global terrorism. It financed and facilitated income tax evasion, smuggling and prostitution." Sort of an early version of the Bush Regime, then.

The Italian bank BNL was one of BCCI's main tentacles. BNL's Atlanta branch was the primary funnel used to send millions of secret dollars to Saddam for arms purchases, including deadly chemicals and other WMD materials supplied by the Chilean arms dealer Cardoen and various politically-connected operators in the United States like, weapons merchant Matrix Churchill.

As soon as the BNL case broke, Bush moved to throttle the investigation. He appointed lawyers from both Cardoen and Matrix to top Justice Department posts – where they supervised the officials investigating their old companies. The overall probe was directed by Justice Department investigator Robert Mueller. Meanwhile, White House aides applied heavy pressure on other prosecutors to restrict the range of the probe – especially the fact that Bush cabinet officials Brent Scowcroft and Lawrence Eagleburger had served as consultants for BNL during their pre-White House days as spear-carriers for yet another secretive international front that profits from war, weapons, and the avid greasing of highly-placed palms: Kissinger Associates. The U.S. Senate later found that the probe had been unaccountably "botched" – witnesses went missing, CIA records got "lost," all sorts of bad luck. Most of the big BCCI players went unpunished or got off with wrist-slap fines and sanctions.

One of the White House aides who unlawfully intervened in the BNL prosecution was a certain factotum named Jay S. ByBee. In 2004, said factotum was appointed by George W. Bush to a place on the federal appeals court – a lifetime sinecure of perks and power. Mueller, meanwhile wound up as head of the FBI, appointed to the post in by George W. in July 2001. Well done, thou good and faithful servants!

Then came Bush's "Gulf War," when he turned on his protégé after Saddam made the foolish move of threatening the Kuwaiti royals – Bush's long-time business partners, going back to the early 1960s. Saddam's conflict with Kuwait centered on two main issues: first, his claim that the billions of dollars Kuwait had given Iraq during the war with Iran was simply straightforward aid to the nation that was defending the Sunni Arab world from the aggressive onslaught of the Shiite Persians. The Kuwaitis insisted the money had been a loan, and demanded that Saddam pay off. There was also Saddam's claim that Kuwait was "slant-drilling" into Iraqi oilfields, siphoning off underground reserves from across the border. These disputes raged for months; a deal to resolve them was brokered by the Arab League, but fell apart at the last minute when Kuwait suddenly rejected the agreement, saying, "We will call in the Americans."

How worried was Bush about the situation? Let's look at the historical record. In the two weeks before the invasion of Kuwait, Bush approved the sale of an additional $4.8 million in "dual-use" technology to factories identified by the CIA as linchpins of Hussein's illicit nuclear and biochemical programs, the Los Angeles Times reports. The day before Saddam sent his tanks across the border, Bush obligingly sold him more than $600 million worth of advanced communications technology. A week later, he was declaring that his long-time ally was "worse than Hitler."

Yes, the Kuwaitis had called in their marker. Like a warlord of old, Bush used the US military as a private army to help his business partners. After an extensive bombing campaign that openly – even gleefully – mocked international law in its targeting of civilian infrastructure (a tactic repeated in Serbia by Bill Clinton – now regarded as an "adopted son" by Bush), the brief 100-hour ground war slaughtered fleeing Iraqi conscripts by the thousands – while, curiously, allowing Saddam's crack troops, the aptly-named Republican Guard, to escape unharmed. Later, these troops were used to kill tens of thousands of Shiites who had risen in rebellion against Saddam – at the specific instigation of George Bush, who not only abandoned them to their fate, but specifically allowed Saddam to use his attack helicopters against the rebels, and also ordered US troops to block Shiites from gaining access to arms caches. It was one of the worst, most murderous betrayals in modern history – and has been almost entirely expunged from the American memory.

Then came the Carthaginian "peace" of the victors – Iraq sown with the salt of sanctions, which led to the unnecessary death of at least 500,000 children, according to UN's conservative estimates. The sanction regime actually strengthened Saddam's grip on Iraqi society, as the ravaged people were reduced to surviving on government handouts of food.

Now another George Bush has visited havoc on Iraq, launching a war that has led to the complete breakdown of Iraqi society, to year after year of deprivation, religious extremism, illegal occupation and unbridled violence. The psychological hell wrought by this sinister consortium – the CIA, the Bushes and Saddam – is unimaginable, a slowly-unfolding atrocity that will chew up victims for decades to come.

Saddam is now on trial for some of his crimes; when will his co-conspirators join him in the dock?

From "Scar Tissue: How the Bushes Brought Bedlam to Iraq," March 6, 2006, Empire Burlesque.

In hundreds of words, a notionally left-wing paper [The Guardian] has nothing but praise for a highly unpopular right-wing president. No space is given over even to the gentlest of rebukes.

The whole article is an exercise in talking without saying anything. Pleasantries replacing truth. Platitudes where facts should be. A nothing burger, with a void on the side and an extra order of beige.

It’s an obituary of Harold Shipman that eschews murder talk and rhapsodises about his love of gardening.

A eulogy to Pinochet that praises his economic reforms but neglects all the soccer stadiums full of corpses.

An epitaph to Hitler that focuses, not on his “controversial political career”, but on his painting and his vegetarianism.

Did you know Genghis Khan once lent me a pencil? He was a swell guy. The world will miss him.

We’re no longer supposed to examine the lives, characters or morals of our leaders. Only “honour their memory” and be “grateful for their service”. History is presented to us, not as a series of choices made by people in power, but as a collection of inevitabilities. Consequences are tragic but unavoidable. Like long-dead family squabbles – To dwell on them is unseemly, and to assign blame unfair.

Just as with John McCain, apologism and revisionism are sold to us as manners and good taste. Attempts to redress the balance and tell the truth are met with stern glares and declarations that it is “too soon”.